Yosser Hughes - Memorable Episode

Memorable Episode

In what was perhaps the most memorable episode of the series, Bleasdale showed the complete disintegration of Yosser's life as his children were taken into care, he was made homeless and finally tried to commit suicide in a lake. Constantly trying to run the gauntlet of psychiatrists, social workers and debtors, Yosser made numerous pathetic attempts to re-establish his identity and sense of self-worth, at one point gatecrashing a charity event to meet his apparent lookalike Graeme Souness.Yosser eventually ends up courting arrest by smashing a storefront window, then being arrested for head-butting one of the police officers who arrived on the scene.


Bleasdale's use of black humour is also apparent in a scene in which a distraught Yosser and his three children enter a confessional where a priest named Fr Daniel Thomas is listening, and telling him "I'm desperate, Father!" When the priest tries to calm him and sympathetically urges Yosser to call him Dan, Yosser blurts out the words; "I'm desperate, Dan!", a play on the comic character, Desperate Dan. Bleasdale admitted on 2 September 2011 on Radio 4's programme "Reunion" that he had been saving that joke for years, but it was the perfect joke at the perfect time.

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